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Lore of the World
Magic. For centuries since its discovery, the peoples of Anarchy harnessed magic and twisted its potent force to their own ends. After all – could not magic do anything, anything the user wished, as long as they were powerful enough, and clever enough? Agriculture, medicine, even war; as civilization swelled across Anarchy, each of these was accomplished with magic. Power became concentrated in the hands of sorcerers, born into the gift; the wizard castes atop their lofty towers; and the truly desperate, the warlocks, willing to sell their soul and more besides. The greatest of the world’s mages was the Merlin, who was all three of these and yet above them, and he looked upon the state of things and decided it was not enough. He foresaw a great age of prosperity, in which all peoples, not merely the privileged few, had access to the power he possessed. An age where such power and knowledge was used for the betterment of all. But in order to bring it about, a cleansing was necessary. The Merlin spent years and years, collecting ingredients for his most powerful spell yet: a spell that could reshape the fabric of the universe in its entirety. He worked in great secrecy, creating a warded laboratory to shield him from divination – even that of the Gods. For the Merlin knew that there were many who would thwart him. On the 13th of March, the mage stepped out of his lab and began casting his Spell. From the first word, the Gods were aware of him and what he had wrought, but the Merlin had been clever – it was already too late. The moon shone bright crimson, and all Anarchy knew from its pallor that the world was about to change. As the last syllable left the mage’s lips, a shockwave spread across the planet, buffeting all in its path and fading into deep space. Magic was no more. All conjuring, all spellcasting, all enchantments, ceased on the Day of Cleansing. Panic erupted all over the realms, as everything they knew would never function the same way again. The Merlin was not to be found. But that day is not what defines Anarchy. No-one should let their past define their present. 749 years after the Day of Cleansing, a child was born in Nazareth, and the world wept as he awoke to his powers. For this child could walk on water, heal ailments incurable, and wither with a touch. Powers that the mages of old had wielded with scant thought, true, but to a world eight centuries bereft of the ancient art, this man, named Jesus, was as the son of Gods. The clock was reset. When he passed at last, the ones who prepared his body for burial discovered inscriptions hidden in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth. Strange runes, that he had concealed beneath his clothing; runes that began to appear on the skins of newborn babes across Anarchy soon after. For He was the First, but not the last. And some naysayers doubt even that – they say that the runes were traced, although by whom no-one knows, to an old and ruined lab, sparking with an unidentifiable energy, deep in the earth… But who will listen to the mad and the raving? The year is now 2030 A.D., and ninety-nine percent of the world’s population carries such an inscription, called an Epithet. Nearly all of them are borne on the skin as some kind of mark. A person’s powers depend on their Epithet, and such powers only grow with training and maturation. And though two people may share the same Epithet, it is rare indeed for them to share the same powers. What will your Epithet be?